Vietnam national university, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES LÊ NGUYÊN HƯƠNG Designing A LEARNER-CENTERED SPEAKING SYLLABUS FOR TECHNICIANS IN GARMENT COMPANIES THIẾT KẾ CHƯƠNG TRÌNH NÓI TIẾNG ANH THEO ĐƯỜNG HƯỚNG LẤY NGƯỜI HỌC LÀM TRUNG TÂM CHO CÁC KỸ THUẬT VIÊN TẠI CÁC DOANH NGHIỆP MAY M. MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60. Hoàng Thị Xuân Hoa HANOI, 10/2011 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Table of contents PART I- INTRODUCTIONS 1. The aims of the study.
The research questions. The scope of the study. The method of the study. The design of the study.
3 Part II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 1. An overview on syllabus design. Definition of syllabus. Types of syllabus.
The functional-notional syllabus. Task- based syllabus. Skill-based syllabus. Learner- centered approach in foreign language teaching.
Learner- centered approach in foreign language teaching. How the learner- centered approach differs from the teacher- centered approach. The steps in designing a learner- centered syllabus. Goal and objective determining.
Content selecting and grading. Teaching method suggesting. An overview of ESP. 17 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Definition of ESP. Classification of ESP. What is speaking. Characteristics of a successful speaking activities.
19 CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY 2. The setting of the study. The teaching and learning conditions. The current syllabus.
The target learners. The teacher staff. Instruments for collecting data .4 Data collecting procedure. 23 CHAPTER III: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 3.
Data gathered by means of English teachers’ questionnaire. Teachers’ opinions on objectives needed meeting at the end of ESP speaking course. Teachers’ selection of topics needed in the speaking syllabus…25 3. Teachers’ selection of grammar and structures needed in the syllabus.
Data gathered by means of learners’ questionnaire. Learners’ opinions on objectives needed meeting at the end of ESP speaking course. Learners’ selection of topics needed in the ESP speaking syllabus. Learners’ selection of grammar and structures needed in the syllabus .Data gathered by means of employers’ interviews.
A PROPOSED SPEAKING SYLLABUS FOR TECHNICIANS IN GARMENT COMPANIES LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Selecting a type of syllabus for ESP learners. Aims and objectives of the syllabus. Some topics included in the syllabus.
Grammatical structures in the syllabus. The organization of the syllabus. Suggestions for learning and teaching. Suggestions for learning.
Suggestions for teaching. Suggestions for assessment and test. 40 PART III: CONCLUSION 1. Limitations and recommendation for further studies.
41 REFERENCES LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 1 PART I: THE INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Hanoi Industrial College for textile, garment and fashion was founded over 40 years ago. Initially, it had only one level: the vocational training. After many efforts, it was upgraded into Junior College in 2005.
Students are trained of different branches: Garment, Fashion designing, Mechanics, Accounting, Finance and banking. English is one of the main subjects in our college. Besides that, English is taught to technicians in Garment Companies for their needs. Technicians in Garment Companies are those people who have good abilities, who graduated from different universities, secondary schools and even from vocational training centers.
Their levels in English are different. They use English in their work frequently, for example, read documents, communicate and discuss with foreign customers about their contracts, their products….They can read and translate the documents, but communicating is very difficult for them. So they need a speaking course, especially a speaking course in their branch. To meet their needs, learner- centered English speaking syllabus was added for technicians in Garment companies.
So our learners need one syllabus that is suitable to their specialization. Being English teachers, we know that designing an appropriate speaking syllabus is really difficult. The syllabus does not only fulfill the objectives of the course but also the learners‟ needs to help them improve their English and specialization. Moreover, learners can deal with the enormous bulk of knowledge in English reference books to support their jobs.
Learners cannot use their English to communicate well. So speaking syllabus has to meet the requirements that help learners to consolidate their GE and improve their vocabulary and speaking skill in ESP English. In the bookshops, there are many English textbooks but I think that they are not suitable to our learners because of the content of those books. The content of those books are just about social communication.
That is why it is difficult for our learners to use them in their jobs. Because of the above – mentioned reasons, the topic “Designing a learner center English speaking syllabus for the technicians in Garment companies” was chosen. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. The aims of the study This study is aimed at designing a learner- centered speaking syllabus for the technicians in Garment companies.
To obtain the aim, following objectives are to be achieved: - To investigate the needs of the learners and the condition of learning. - To propose an appropriate speaking syllabus for learners based on their needs and special requirements. The research questions. To achieve the above aims and objectives, the following questions are raised: 1.
What are the learners‟ learning in term of English speaking skill? 2. What components should the proposal syllabus have in order to meet the students‟ needs? 4. The scope of the study. This study focuses on designing an English speaking syllabus under the light of learner- centered approach with 45 periods for the technicians in garment companies.
The method of the study Quantitative method is employed in this study. The quantitative is used to collect the data by questionnaires. The results of questionnaire 1 are the findings about the needs of students, their opinions and expectations about the English speaking course. The English teachers‟ suggestions and ideas are collected from questionnaire 2 to find out the topics of the lessons in the syllabus.
Apart from survey questionnaires, personal interviews with employers of some garment companies also deployed to contribute to the validity and consistency of the data collected. The design of the study. This study consists of three main parts: Part I: Introduction presents the rationale, aims and objectives, research questions, scope of the study, research methods and the design of the study. Part II: Development comprises of: Chapter I: Literature review provides the overview of syllabus design, ESP, learner centered English speaking syllabus.
Chapter II: The setting and methodology of the research LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 3 Chapter III: The study presents the findings of students‟ needs, teachers‟ suggestions for the speaking syllabus. Chapter IV: The proposal speaking syllabus based on the students‟ needs, teachers‟ and employers‟ suggestions and the course objectives. Part III: The conclusion aims at summarizing the main ideas of the study, The last one is the Appendix that includes the questionnaires, tables. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 4 PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.
An overview on syllabus design 1. Definition of syllabus Syllabus is a popular notion in teaching language, it plays an important role in the success of the teaching and learning. There are several ways of defining the syllabus on the views of different writers: the narrow and the broad approach to syllabus design. Yalden (1984:14), a broad view scholar, defines that “The syllabus replaces the concept of „method‟, and the syllabus is now seen as an instrument by which the teacher, with the help of the syllabus designer, can achieve a degree of „fit‟ between the needs and the aims of the learners (as social being and as individual), and the activities which will take place in the classroom”.
He considers the teachers as an assistant of the syllabus designer, teachers can adjust the syllabus and the learners‟ needs and aims in the classroom. On the other hand, with a clear distinction between the syllabus design and methodology, Nunan (1988:5) points out that “Syllabus design is seem as being concern with the selection and grading of the content, while methodology is concerned with the selection of learning tasks and activities”. He also affirmed: “Syllabus is a statement of content which is used as the basic for planning courses of various kinds, and that the task of the syllabus designer is to select and grade this content”. According to Hutchinson and Waters (1993:90), a syllabus is a document which says what will (or at least what should) be learnt, it should state out the goals, content, and activities to be carried out in a particular, and well-defined context.
And Allen (1984:61) supposes: “Syllabus is concerned with a specification of what units will be taught (as distinction from how they will be taught, which is the matter for methodology) The following detailed guideline for syllabus designer was given by Dudin and Olshtain (1980:28):“what it is called, it is a document which ideally describes: What the learner are expected to know at the end of the course, or the course objectives in operational terms. What is to be taught or learned during the course, in the form of an inventory of items? LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 5 When it is to be taught, and at what rate of progress, relating the inventory of items to the different levels and stages as well as the time constrains of the course. How it is to be taught, suggesting procedures, techniques, and materials. How it is to be evaluated, suggesting testing and evaluating mechanism.
In short, there are many different views in syllabus design. Each one has its own strong and weak points. So syllabus designers have to take account the objectives and the learners‟ needs to design an appropriate syllabus that meet the demand. I will not follow anyone‟s and I will mix the above view to find out the best points.
Types of syllabus 1. The Structural syllabus Traditionally, structural syllabus is also called grammatical one. This is one of the most popular ways of designing syllabus for long because grammatical forms are the key to master a language. Structure syllabus focuses on teaching students the forms, structures and grammatical of language such as how to use and form nouns, verbs, adjectives or tenses, voice….Discussing the structural syllabus, Yalden (1983: 36) wrote “ structural syllabus are based on the assumption that it is enough to grade the material from a linguistic point of view, i.e to look at the grading from a point of view of the structures and words to be taught”.
The activity in a class where the structural syllabus is used is, therefore, confined to the appraisal of utterances or structural criteria in isolation from each other. Students learn question form, negation, imperative, passive………. They also learn phrasal verbs, complex sentences……etc. But they are not taught how to answer and express appropriately to a given function in a given situation.
The teachers may use different methods in the class, which follow the structural syllabus, but the constraints are the same: the content of the syllabus has been determined by giving the priority to teaching the grammatical structures of the language. Besides, the structural syllabus seems to bias the teacher-centered rather than the learned-centered approach so it is not highly appropriate in teaching language nowadays. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. The functional-notional syllabus In contrast with the structural syllabus, functional-notional one emphasizes the real communicative function of language.
The content of the language teaching is a collection of the functions that usually occur in daily life, for example: informing, agreeing, apologizing, requesting, and so on. And the notions of the language relating to size, age, color, time, comparison….